Strasburg suffers abrupt end to phenomenal start

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You begin with a basic premise: that the human arm was not designed to throw overhand.

Mother Nature must be a softball fan. Or maybe a bowler. Had she intended for men to fling objects from over the top at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour, she would have surely put the shoulder on a hinge that could be serviced with WD-40.

She would have made the elbow of sterner stuff.

“The act of throwing a baseball overhand is not a natural thing to do,” Padres manager Bud Black said Friday. “Everybody, at some point, it’s going to get you.”

Since “everybody” now includes Stephen Strasburg, the pitching prospect of his generation, the question of cause and the assessment of blame are destined for vigorous debate. Yet whatever you might hear about Strasburg’s torn ulnar collateral ligament is likely to be long on theory and short on proof.

Stuff happens. Throwing a baseball inherently involves the assumption of risk and shredded shoulders and exploding elbows are a predictable byproduct. That Strasburg’s elbow gave out in the midst of his 12th big-league start is the buzz kill of this baseball season and a severe blow to the profile and profits of the Washington Nationals.

The remarkable rookie from San Diego State was not just another fireballing phenom, but a happening. He arrived on the scene with an unprecedented amount of advance billing and, for the most part, exceeded it.

Strasburg faced 274 batters in his shakedown season and struck out 92 of them, a 33.6 percent K-rationing that ESPN’s Jayson Stark reports has been achieved by only two other pitchers who have started at least 10 games in a season: Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez.

That’s not beginner’s luck, but transcendent talent. While other young pitchers drew comparisons to established stars, Strasburg’s mythic qualities suggested George Plimpton’s fictional Sidd Finch.

Vangsness, whose own pitching career peaked at Minnesota’s St. Olaf’s College, estimates that he has performed “a couple of dozen’’ of the Tommy John surgeries now high on Strasburg’s to-do list. The procedure pioneered by Dr. Frank Jobe in 1974 (with John as his patient) has since become so commonplace and successful that it’s now regarded as routine.

Nine of the pitchers who participated in last month’s All-Star Game have undergone the procedure. Jobe has placed the success rate for major-league pitchers at 93 percent.

“I’d take Tommy John about 10 times before I’d go get shoulder surgery,” Padres pitcher Chris Young said. “The success rate is so high. He (Strasburg) will miss a year, but he’ll come back as strong or stronger.”

There is no certainty on that score. Weaving a tendon through tunnels drilled in the ulna and humerous bones has helped salvage many major-league careers, but it is only the first step on the 12-18 month road of recovery and rehabilitation.